12 Oct 2016 | by flint

Why SEO is not guaranteed to rank you first in the search engine results

When you find that SEO agency/specialist/shyster that will guarantee you a no.1 spot in the Google search engine results pages, you must be cautious not to fall into the too-good-to-be-true trap.

Not only will you will end up wasting valuable money but you will end up harming your business’s reputation as well, and let’s face it, nobody wants that.

What to watch out for

Webopedia defines Blackhat SEO as “the use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience, and usually does not obey search engines guidelines.”

In other words, these SEO “specialists” are looking for a quick buck rather than a long-term investment on their client’s web sites and make use of some of the following unethical methods:

Content spinning
Unnatural link building techniques and link farming
Keyword stuffing
Link stuffing
Hidden content
Low quality content
Over-optimised anchor text
Duplicate sites

Practicing this type of SEO is dangerous as it can result in the site being banned from search engines or penalized by Google’s search results ranking algorithms

SEO, Google

Why can’t SEO specialists guarantee a no.1 spot?

There are a number of reasons and quite a few factors and considerations to take into account here, such as:

Google determines the placement of your company according to various factors like the selected keywords you have optimised your site for – this is out of the agency’s control
Competition for your desired keyword might be high in % and chances of competing with ‘bigger’ clients with well-known brands might be slim
Search Engines like Google constantly change their algorithms which might affect your search engine placements
Search Engines expressly warn against it – Google’s official statement reads “No one can guarantee a number 1 ranking on Google”

So what CAN an SEO specialist do?

There are other ways in which you can dominate – for instance sharing fantastic original, relevant and value-adding content or selling amazing products to your niche markets.

A few examples of ethical, above the board SEO techniques which agencies should be using are:

Focus on the human audience
High quality content, original content
Relevant links and references
Relevant page titles, meta data, alt text
Purpose driven links
Natural writing and keyword usage
Avoiding over-optimisation

When trying to rank for highly competitive keywords, combine your SEO-efforts with SMART digital marketing strategies and share your content with the relevant audience on social media channels; bearing in mind, this is still not a guarantee that you will reach the no.1 position in the SERPs.

So rather, look for an SEO-Specialist (Like us, just saying) that will guarantee an improvement on rankings instead, taking into consideration a well thought out strategy, along with a thorough content marketing strategy which is a far more realistic as well as ethical goal than taking the top spot in the SERPs

Have you ever had a bad experience with an SEO agency? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.